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It hit me like a brick wall one morning as I sipped my coffee and went through my reader: I had to change my comment system. It was an improvement that I’d been considering for a while and just hadn’t gotten around to, but as I sat and waited for a pop-up comment window to load I realized I was annoyed. Of course, I can acknowledge that I’m impatient, so I took another sip of coffee and told myself to relax. But when I closed my browser only to see that the comment hadn’t been published because of the word verification, it occurred to me that leaving a comment is often more frustrating than it should be. It shouldn’t be frustrating at all. In fact, it should be easy, and it should feel like a conversation. Enter: Disqus, the system I recently installed here on Style by Santina.

Five Reasons To Replace Blogger’s Built-in Comment System With Disqus:

5. It’s painless! Disqus not only makes installation easy but also allows you to import all existing comments with just a few mouse clicks.

Tip: It can take up to twenty-four hours for all existing comments to be imported, so don’t stress if all your comments aren’t immediately visible. How would you know if something went astray? Just compare the count of comments in Blogger to the number imported by Disqus, and remember: comments marked as Spam will not be imported.

Also, all the comments are imported exactly as they appear. Like many others, I have often attempted to reply to a comment by posting one myself with an @username. Eventually, I want to go back and clean things up by reposting them as actual replies.

4. Moderate comments by replying to email notifications of comments. I have to admit, I am constantly checking my inbox for new comments, and most of the time I do so using my iPhone. Sure, moderating Blogger comments with email is possible, but it’s cumbersome and requires clicking through a link that redirects you to Blogger. Not logged into Blogger? One more step. I don’t like steps; I like easy.

With Disqus, you simply reply to the email with “Approve”, “Delete”, or “Spam”. That’s it.

Tip: Be sure you don’t misspell your command. Anything other than those three words will not only approve the comment but also post the content as a reply to it. I once responded with “Approved” and only realized it as I was replying to comments and saw that one comment already had a response…from me…saying “Approved”. Oops.

3. Two words: Whitelist/Blacklist. Comment moderation is made even easier with these tools. I’m fortunate to have some loyal commenters, like Ashley, whose comments I know to approve before I even read them. Thanks to the Disqus, I can finally approve them once and for all, so that their comments are posted immediately.

2. There’s an explicit link between a comment and a reply. This was one of the biggest motivators in my move to Disqus. I wanted to reply to reader’s specific comments but in a public way. Sure, the @username approach is a workaround albeit a crude one, but who wants to wade through comments searching for a reply? Not me, so why would I expect anyone else to? Replying to a comment also generates an email notification, as long as the commenter’s Disqus account allows notifications.

Tip: Find a test buddy. Be sure to test that notifications are not only being successfully sent but also directed to the commenter’s inbox. Thanks to Morgan, I recently realized that some people aren’t receiving notifications of my replies to their comments. I’m working with Disqus to get to the bottom of the issue, but here are a few tips:
• Ensure your account allows notifications (instructions can be found here)
• Check your spam filter
• Add *@disqus.com and *@disqus.net to your email’s whitelist
• Still no luck? Let the blog owner know!

1. More comments! More conversation! While it’s impossible for me to definitively say that installing Disqus has resulted in more comments, I have observed an increase. I should note that my replies to comments are included in the count and I’m replying via comments almost exclusively now. Despite the quantity, I definitely feel like the quality of conversation has improved since installing Disqus. And, after my last post, I think I can safely say that’s what most of us hope for!

Okay, it's confession time: I started this post more than a week ago but didn’t finish it until now. I questioned whether there would be interest in hearing the benefits of moving from Blogger’s built-in comment system to Disqus, but after quite a bit of Twitter buzz, I decided it was time. (Besides, I hate leaving something unfinished!) I acknowledge that my last few posts have diverged from the normal topics included here on Style by Santina, and I’d love your feedback. Are you interested in posts aimed at better blogging?

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comments:

I agree - Blogger commenting is less than desirable. I too wanted to reply in a thread fashion instead of the way Blogger does. You have done a good job with this post highlighting Disqus. Good information. I use IntenseDebate for my commenting. I have had zero issue with it. It is so much better than Blogger. www.fashnlvr.blogspot.com

I am so honored to be your featured commenter. I feel like such a rockstar. Could I be considered a preferred commenter now??

In all seriousness, I'm glad you made the switch to disquis, it was something Becca and I were discussing before we up and left blogger altogether. In fact, Becca is interested in maybe adding it to wordpress - that girl cannot stop blog changing! I'm not sure that I'm sold on it tho..I don't think it's that much of a step above the WP system.

Fabulous job at explaining all the perks of Disqus. The first blog I ever saw this method of commenting on was What I Wore and I fell in love with it, but was afraid of installing it on my blog. Then about 2 months ago, I figured out how easy it was and plunged right in:) It's been the best!

So wordpress has a reply system too - so it's not as much as a draw - I'm still waiting for a good reason to switch. I do like the dashboard feature, but I'm wondering how many of our readers are registered disqus users and thus seeing their replies. I'm just not sure where I stand on this one!!! But I'll give it to you - disqus is definitely better than blogger's comment system.

Great information, and so handy if you needed to block someone or immediately approve a reader, brilliant! I haven't considered disquis but will after this fantastic post. Hope your having a lovely Friday hun! xx veronika

I dont mind the blogger comments EXCEPT you cannot reply to individual people, I hate it. I cannot figure out why in the world Blogger wouldnt fix this?!? I think I'm finally sold, I was a little worried that not many users had signed up for it. But many large blogs have already moved over, I have nothing holding me back!

Ahh blogger. Nothing irritates me more than writing out my comment, clicking send, then getting ANOTHER pop-up for word verification. I would also add that look of Disqus is nice and simple and appealing (at least to me). I'm very happy with it!

I have no idea why Blogger wouldn't enhance the built-in comments to include replies; it drove me crazy!

I had actually signed up for Disqus before implementing it here because so many blogs I follow used it. I really like the dashboard feature, which allows you to view replies made to your comments without returning to the blog itself.

Since moving to Wordpress I am finding it super annoying to post on blogspot blogs because they don't all allow URLs! Disquis blogs are much easier if you don't have a blogspot blog, and therefore I have seen the light! Wordpress has a nice commenting setup, which requires people to enter their email, which also makes it easy to respond, unlike blogspot...

Interesting! I have attempted to install Disqus once, but 'cause more than half of my comments had "disappeared" I went back to the regular comment system. Actually, I think it's a good tool for blogger, cause it's a very annoying commenting system indeed (especially with the word verification, argh!) but for wordpress it's less necessary. No need to enter a captcha code or there's no box popping up so... guess I'll just keep it like that. But I have to admit, whenever I see a site/blog that has disqus I'm relieved/happy! :)

Santina- you've summed up all of the reasons I changed my comment system to Disqus some months ago! I like it a lot better and I believe so do most of my readers, but I just wrote a post about commenting and have asked them to confirm!

Hey, I just using Disqus too just now.But there's a problem of mine. Why the comments (the new ones using disqus) doesn't integrated anymore with blogger?

You know there's a new alternative for viewing blog just by simply adding "/view" at the end of your site (stylebysantina.blogspot.com/view). And you still can view the comments from there, that means your comments using disqus still integrated with blogger, right? But i dunno, they seem dont appear on my blog..

About Me

Hi, I’m Santina and this is my personal style blog, where I mostly share what I’m wearing or what I can only wish to be wearing. If we’re going to be friends you should know that my favorite things include (in no particular order): cats, Wild Berry Skittles, button downs, anything Marc by Marc, the Boston Celtics, champagne, and shoes. Email me at: stylebysantina(at)gmail(dot)com